Science

The first large-scale comparison of mutation rates gives insights into how quickly species can evolve. The post Animal Mutation Rates Reveal Traits That Speed Evolution first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

The surprisingly simple tile is the first single, connected tile that can fill the entire plane in a pattern that never repeats — and can't be made to fill it in a repeating way. The post Hobbyist Finds Math's Elusive 'Einstein' Tile...

The prize-winning geometer feels most fulfilled when exploring the fertile ground where constraint meets creation. The post Emmy Murphy Is a Mathematician Who Finds Beauty in Flexibility first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

Learn why the quadratic formula works and why quadratics are easier to solve than cubics. The post The Symmetry That Makes Solving Math Equations Easy first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

Last fall, a team of physicists announced that they had teleported a qubit through a holographic wormhole in a quantum computer. Now another group suggests that's not quite what happened. The post Wormhole Experiment Called Into Question first appeare...

The American researcher was recognized for his central role in inventing, standardizing and commercializing the ubiquitous networking technology. The post Bob Metcalfe, Ethernet Pioneer, Wins Turing Award first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

For decades, mathematicians have been inching forward on a problem about which sets contain evenly spaced patterns of three numbers. Last month, two computer scientists blew past all of those results. The post Surprise Computer Science Proof Stuns Mathema...

A survey of prehistoric bones reveals that T. rex and some of its cousins had more than one way to reach enormous sizes. Evolution may have preserved that variation in modern animals too. The post Dinosaur Bone Study Reveals That Not All Giants Grew Alike...

Large language models like ChatGPT are now big enough that they've started to display startling, unpredictable behaviors. The post The Unpredictable Abilities Emerging From Large AI Models first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

In a recent paper, two mathematicians showed that a particular pattern is unavoidable when fractions are categorized. The post Coloring by Numbers Reveals Arithmetic Patterns in Fractions first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

Cosmologists are using secondary signatures from the cosmic microwave background to map the universe's hidden matter. The post Shadows in the Big Bang Afterglow Reveal Invisible Cosmic Structures first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

Arvind Narayanan uses quantitative methods to expose and correct the misuse of quantitative methods. The post The Researcher Who Would Teach Machines to Be Fair first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

By genetically instructing cells to perform tasks that they wouldn't in nature, synthetic biologists can learn deep secrets about how life works. Steven Strogatz discusses the potential of this young field with researcher Michael Elowitz. The post Can...

A paper in Nature reports the discovery of a superconductor that operates at room temperatures and near-room pressures. The claim has divided the research community. The post Room-Temperature Superconductor Discovery Meets With Resistance first appeared o...

New calculations suggest that the event horizons around black holes will 'decohere' quantum possibilities — even those that are far away. The post Black Holes Will Eventually Destroy All Quantum States, Researchers Argue first appeared on Qu...

By replacing thousands of equations with just one, ecology modelers can more accurately assess how close fragile environments are to a disastrous "tipping point." The post Simpler Math Predicts How Close Ecosystems Are to Collapse first appeared o...

Explore a universe of numbers and arithmetic in our new interactive math game, Hyperjumps! The post How Many Exoplanets Can You Visit in Quanta's New Math Game? first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

Cryptographers have shown how perfect security can undermine machine learning models. The post In Neural Networks, Unbreakable Locks Can Hide Invisible Doors first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

Lek-Heng Lim uses tools from algebra, geometry and topology to answer questions in machine learning. The post An Applied Mathematician With an Unexpected Toolbox first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

Feelings of loneliness prompt changes in the brain that further isolate people from social contact. The post How Loneliness Reshapes the Brain first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

There appear to be too many gamma rays coming from the sun. New higher-energy measurements reveal that this excess continues for a bit, then disappears — a cutoff that could help clarify what's going on. The post Strange Solar Gamma Rays Discove...

Several real-life pathogens can change a host's behavior against their will. Here's what we know about these zombie-like infections. The post Can Our Brains Be Taken Over? first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

The quantum energy teleportation protocol was proposed in 2008 and largely ignored. Now two independent experiments have shown that it works. The post Physicists Use Quantum Mechanics to Pull Energy out of Nothing first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

Big Freeze, Big Rip, Big Crunch, Bounce or vacuum decay? Steven Strogatz speaks with theoretical cosmologist Katie Mack about the five ways that scientists think the universe could come to an end. The post How Will the Universe End? first appeared on Quan...

"Virovores" — organisms that survive and multiply by eating viruses — might influence the flow of energy through ecosystems. The post With Nothing to Eat Except Viruses, Some Microbes Thrive first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

Mathematicians have struggled to understand the moduli space of graphs. A new paper uses tools from physics to peek inside. The post Quantum Field Theory Pries Open Mathematical Puzzle first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

Large language models still struggle with basic reasoning tasks. Two new papers that apply machine learning to math provide a blueprint for how that could change. The post To Teach Computers Math, Researchers Merge AI Approaches first appeared on Quanta M...

The neocortex of our brain is the seat of our intellect. New data suggests that mammals created it with new types of cells that they developed only after their evolutionary split from reptiles. The post Gene Expression in Neurons Solves a Brain Evolution ...

Regenerative medicine researcher Kristy Red Horse's discoveries may someday help damaged hearts heal better. Her stewardship of her Native American heritage may advance science in other ways too. The post She Studies Growing Arteries to Aid Heart Atta...

Is it possible to fill space "cubically" with shapes that act like spheres? A proof at the intersection of geometry and theoretical computer science says yes. The post Mathematicians Complete Quest to Build 'Spherical Cubes' first appeared...

As The Joy of Why podcast returns for a second season, producer Polly Stryker and host Steven Strogatz invite listeners to join them and their brilliant new guests on another voyage of discovery. The post The Joy of Asking About Infinity, Jellyfish and th...

Type Ia supernovas are astronomers' best tools for measuring cosmic distances. In a first, researchers have managed to re-create one on a supercomputer, giving a boost to a leading hypothesis for how they form. The post What Lights the Universe's ...

"Liquid" neural nets, based on a worm's nervous system, can transform their underlying algorithms on the fly, giving them unprecedented speed and adaptability. The post Researchers Discover a More Flexible Approach to Machine Learning first ap...

Richard Feynman's path integral is both a powerful prediction machine and a philosophy about how the world is. But physicists are still struggling to figure out how to use it, and what it means. The post How Our Reality May Be a Sum of All Possible Re...

A new proof shows that a knot some thought would contradict the famed slice-ribbon conjecture doesn't. The post Mathematicians Eliminate Long-Standing Threat to Knot Conjecture first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

A wave of research improves reinforcement learning algorithms by pre-training them as if they were human. The post Machines Learn Better if We Teach Them the Basics first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

The critical brain hypothesis suggests that neural networks do their best work when connections are not too weak or too strong. The post When Does the Brain Operate at Peak Performance? first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

Theory has it that "Population III" stars brought light to the cosmos. The James Webb Space Telescope may have just glimpsed them. The post Astronomers Say They Have Spotted the Universe's First Stars first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

Two teams have made photons act as if time were simultaneously flowing in two directions. The experiments demonstrate a way to potentially boost the performance of quantum devices. The post How Quantum Physicists 'Flipped Time' (and How They Didn&...

Depression has often been blamed on low levels of serotonin in the brain. That answer is insufficient, but alternatives are coming into view and changing our understanding of the disease. The post The Cause of Depression Is Probably Not What You Think fir...

In Shang-Hua Teng's work, theoretical and practical questions have long been intertwined. Now he's turning his focus to the impractical. The post The Computer Scientist Who Finds Life Lessons in Games first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

In three-dimensional space, the surface of a black hole must be a sphere. But a new result shows that in higher dimensions, an infinite number of configurations are possible. The post Mathematicians Find an Infinity of Possible Black Hole Shapes first app...

Whether you're passing secret notes in class or downloading images from a space probe, Reed-Solomon codes offer an ingenious way to embed information and correct for errors. The post The Basic Algebra Behind Secret Codes and Space Communication first ...

Reports that the James Webb Space Telescope killed the reigning cosmological model turn out to have been exaggerated. But astronomers still have much to learn from distant galaxies glimpsed by Webb. The post Standard Model of Cosmology Survives a Telescop...

Mathematicians have uncovered a surprising wealth of rock-paper-scissors-like patterns in randomly chosen dice. The post Mathematicians Roll Dice and Get Rock-Paper-Scissors first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

Researchers can now find the shortest route through a network nearly as fast as theoretically possible, even when some steps can cancel out others. The post Finally, a Fast Algorithm for Shortest Paths on Negative Graphs first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

Tiny genetic sequences in a mother's bacteria seem to hop into the infant's bacteria, perhaps ensuring a healthy microbiome later in life. The post Mobile Genes From the Mother Shape the Baby's Microbiome first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

Mathematicians are taking ideas developed to study random numbers and applying them to a broad range of categories. The post Probability and Number Theory Collide — in a Moment first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

Nikta Fakhri is adapting and extending concepts from physics to describe how tiny biological components give rise to living organisms. The post Starfish Whisperer Develops a Physical Language of Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine...

Queen ants live far longer than genetically identical workers. Researchers are learning what their longevity secrets could mean for aging in other species. The post Ants Live 10 Times Longer by Altering Their Insulin Responses first appeared on Quanta Mag...